


I Know How You Love to Play Games

by debwalsh



Series: Deb’s Fictober Surprise! [21]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern: No Powers, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, M/M, Mystery, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Steve Rogers Has Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-27
Updated: 2018-10-27
Packaged: 2019-08-08 13:21:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,062
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16430171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/debwalsh/pseuds/debwalsh
Summary: In this sequel to Impressive, Truly, Steve learns what happened to the love of his life, and we discover there is more to Steve than just a fast pedal.





	I Know How You Love to Play Games

**Author's Note:**

> You reall do need to read Impressive, Truly for this to remotely make sense, I think.
> 
> And no, I wasn’t going to leave you hanging!

Look, can we not right now?” Bucky said, moving toward Steve like he was going to try to brush past him.  

Steve shifted his center of gravity and shook his head. “You’re not getting out of here until you tell me where you’ve been the past two years. You owe me that much.”

A look of pain flitted across Bucky’s features - features Steve knew and still loved so well, and yet there was something heavy, weighing, the marred those features with sadness? Fear? Anger?

Bucky Fucking Barnes wasn’t going to tug at Steve’s heartstrings - or any other part of his anatomy - and get away this time. Steve had been through hell the past two years, and he knew he wouldn’t survive unless he had some answers. Nat, Clint, Tony, and Sam would never forgive him if he just let Bucky walk. Bruce and T’Challa, too. They’d been through too much with him, picked up too many damned pieces of him, and stitched him together with too many scars for all of them. He owed it to himself, he owed it to them.

And he realized with a start that the fact that this was Bucky had clouded his usually clear head. Bucky had been following him, shadowing him across the city, without knowing who he was. That meant that Bucky was really a potential threat.

A potential threat he might need help to contain. Casually, he brought his hand to his left ear, and thumbed on his comm. He needed someone in on this.  

“‘Yeah?” he heard Nat say in his ear.

Bucky was still standing there, looking half like he was going to try to go through Steve, and half like he was going to cry.

“Like I said, Buck. You’re not getting out of here until you tell me the truth. Where have you been for the past two years? And why are you following me?”

“Jesus, Steve, Barnes is with you?” Nat asked. “What the hell?”

“Steve, I didn’t know it was you. All I knew was that you had something I need. Your access code. I need your access code. Give it to me and then I can be on my way. You never have to see me again.”

“A, fuck you very much. B, no way are you getting my access code. What the hell, Buck, were you planning to beat it out of me? It’s not a key card. And C, see A. And D, why the fuck would you think I wouldn’t want to see you again?”

“Keep him talking, Steve. I’ve got your location -“

“We need to talk, James Buchanan Barnes. You need to talk. One day, we were planning our wedding and putting a deposit down on a loft in Park Slope. Next, you’re gone, your family’s gone, no one knew where any of you’d gone, everything’s gone, bank accounts closed, apartments empty - it’s like you never existed. Not a word. Not one fucking word for two years. I didn’t know if you were alive or dead, if -“ Steve broke off on a sob.

Bucky’s facade crumbled at that, and Steve heard his make a sound like an animal in pain. “No, Steve, it wasn’t that I wanted to leave,” Bucky said, taking a stumbling step toward him, his hand outstretched. “I didn’t have a choice - I never would’a left you by choice -“

“WitSec?” Steve asked then, ignoring the, “Keep him talking, Rogers,” in his ear. “Is that what happened?” Steve pressed Bucky, fighting every instinct that screamed at him to stand down, to move and take this man into his arms. But he couldn’t afford to let his guard down, to give Bucky an opening to get away.  

“Fuck, if only,” Bucky replied with a tone of bitter anguish, stopping suddenly as if a wall had sprung up between them.

“Then what? Why would you leave? Why would you leave me?”

“I ...” he shook his head, and damn if it didn’t look like he was warring with himself. The look he gave Steve felt like he was being torn apart right in front of Steve, and Steve finally felt something like honesty opening between them.

“Remember my Dad’s ‘little problem’?”

“The ponies, the cards, or the bookies?”

“All of the above. Man never met a bet he could pass up, or odds that weren’t in his favor. I didn’t know it at the time, but he got in deep with an organization that was gonna wipe his debt. For a price.”

George Barnes was a certified genius, Nobel level, even, but he’d always been plagued by demons. Gambling, drink, even drugs at one point. He’d been benched by more than one elite research organization in the US, but not before he’d made several significant breakthroughs, and earned a reputation for being both brilliant and completely untrustworthy. Bucky’s Ma had refused to move the family out of Brooklyn after Bucky’s Dad had been fired from the think tank at Columbia, and he’d become all but a ghost to the family in Bucky’s teen years and beyond.

What the hell could he have done that would have crashed so violently into the lives of the family he’d all but abandoned?

“Jesus, Buck. What -“

“The price was all of us. All of us, Steve, even Becca. She got pulled right out of her high school class, called to the office and escorted off the property. By the time any of us knew what was happening, these goons had stepped in, packed up our lives, and we were on a plane to some godforsaken installation in fucking Siberia. Siberia, Steve. It was like we were living through some bad art movie of the ‘70s, only it was real, it was our lives. Cell service ain’t so good on the tundra.”

“But you’re here, you’re back -“

“Only because they need something. Something you have. They gave me a description, told me to get it from you. They didn’t tell me it was you. I don’t even know if they know we knew each other.”

“Who, Buck? Who are you working for?”

“I wouldn’t say I work for them. Not voluntarily. Let’s just say I do this, they finally let Becca go.”

“I can’t give you that code, Buck. No matter what the reason.”

“You don’t understand, Steve. My Mom is dead. She killed herself six months ago. Couldn’t take it anymore. Dad is less than worthless, always has been, but he’s close to finishing the project they have him on. He needs one more thing, and it’s behind that code.”  

Bucky started to coil inward, and Steve knew he was going to try to make a break for it. But if he needed the code that Steve carried in his head, he was either going to try again, or try to take Steve with him. With just a bicycle, he wasn’t going to get far with Steve’s dead weight, so ...

It broke Steve’s heart to know that the man he loved was willing to sacrifice him, but a part of him understood the family loyalty Bucky felt for his baby sister. Still, he couldn’t let that code get into anyone’s hands, let alone an organization that would kidnap an entire family, and use the potential murder of a sibling against Bucky. “Who are they, Buck? Who’s making you do this?”

“Hydra.”

It all made sense then. They’d lured George Barnes in, hooked him on their largesse so they could eventually lock him and his genius in. The family was a way to keep him in line, and placing them all in Siberia insulated George from the temptations that ruled his life. With no support system outside the family, it would make George even more dependent, even more at their mercy. With Winnie gone ... but there was no way they’d let Becca go. Or Buck for that matter. They were dangling their freedom in front of Bucky, they’d get what they wanted, and once George finished the project, Bucky and Becca would be buried without a trace. George, too, unless he came up with something else Hydra wanted.

“Sam and Clint are in position. Did he say Hydra?” Nat demanded in his earpiece.

“Where is Becca?”

“They’ve got here here, in New York, in a safe house. I don’t know where.”

“Scanning for chatter. Now I know what I’m looking for, I’ll find her. I’ll get back to you, Rogers,” Nat told him succinctly.

“I can’t let you go, Buck. I can’t give you the code. But you’re gonna let us help you.”

“They have Becca, Steve. Becca. They’re gonna kill her -“

“We’re gonna get her back. They made a mistake bringing you both back here. This gives us a chance. But what is it that George needs?”

“Look, I know how you love to play games, but this is for real, Steve. This is Becca’s life -“

“And if Hydra has your Dad working on something, that something isn’t good for the rest of the world, Buck. We have an opportunity, a window. Don’t fucking waste it. What is it that George needs?”

Steve’s certitude, the command he brought to bear, brought Bucky up short. His old lover looked at him with a curious furrow between his brows, but he answered succinctly, “Arc technology. Your company has Stark as a client, you have the code that will get you into their facilities -“

Steve couldn’t help it. He started to laugh. “They want Tony’s arc reactor? That’s what they sent you to get?” Steve dragged his hand through his hair, shaking his head. “Fuck. Okay. We can definitely make this work.”

“Tony’s here, I’m putting him on speaker,” Nat announced with a chuckle of her own.

“Well, hell, Rogers. The Buckster and Hydra all on the same day. Time to play the Powerball - Lady Luck just gave you a killer blowjob!” Tony announced, and Steve could see the lascivious leer right through the comm.  

He wasn’t wrong, though.

Steve turned then, called out softly, “Sam? Clint?” And like smoke, the pair of them appeared from opposite directions of the gated space. “You heard?”

“Already called it in to Stark. How are we playing this, Steve?” Sam asked, then glanced over at where Bucky stood, looking more bereft and confused than Steve had ever seen him. “Barnes. So, you’re not a complete scum bucket after all, huh?”

‘Um, no?” Bucky asked, ducking his head as a blush bloomed on his cheeks. “Hi, Sam. Clint. Um, what’re you guys doing here?”

Steve turned back to Bucky and smiled. “SHIELD Courier and Security isn’t just a bike courier company. And I don’t just ride as a courier. You should know me better than that, Buck. This is my company. And we provide security to some of the most significant targets in the intelligence community. It’s just that nobody knows it outside a very small circle.”

“Wait, you’re a spook -“

“What’d you think I was doing while you were gone, Barnes? Taking up knitting? I’ve been putting together an organization so I could find you and bring you home. Now my team is going to make sure we don’t get interrupted while you bring me up to speed. Sam, Clint, I’m going to turn off my comm so we can have a real conversation, but liaise with Nat - she’s hunting for Becca. Tony’s with her and he’s on the same page. Then we’ll convene and come up with a plan. First we’re getting Becca back, then we’re going after Hydra.”  

He thumbed off the comm, and tried to soften his expression as he took a step toward Bucky. He heard rather than saw Sam and Clint slip away. They’d make sure they weren’t surprised. “This is a surveillance dead zone. It’s why I picked it. Tony developed our comm technology, and it operates even in a jammed environment. So we’re safe here, and no one can hear unless I want them to. How about we have a seat and really talk?”

Bucky stared at him for a moment, tears glittering in his gray-blue eyes. And then suddenly, he was kissing Steve, his hands hot and surprisingly gentle on Steve’s face.  

There was a mission ahead of them. But for this moment in time, Steve held the man he loved, the man he thought he’d lost, and this time, he wasn’t letting go.

END

**Author's Note:**

> There will be three more parts to this tale. And yes, I’m working on them.
> 
> So ... whaddya think? Was this what you expected?


End file.
